It was in the hands of the American people and the decision was made: Donald Trump will be the 45th US president, with 279 electoral votes.
The exit polls and predictions were overturned for the second time, just five months after the same thing happened in the UK with Brexit.
At 7:15 pm ET (12:15 am GMT), the New York Times predicted Hillary Clinton had a 80% chance of winning the election, but this dropped dramatically as swing states like Florida and Ohio went to Trump by very slender majorities.
The first consequence of the elections has been turmoil on the financial markets, with the Dow Jones Industrial Index set to open 800 points down and the Mexican peso falling 11.85% to a record low against the US dollar.
The Republicans managed to keep the majority in the Senate losing just one seat, but winning by 51 to 47.
Republicans also kept the control of the House of Representative, where 234 seats are held by Republicans and 178 by Democrats.
But there are wider implication; the delay on appointing the next new supreme court justices means Trump will be able to put Republicans in place in the Supreme Court as well.
The emotional vote delivered a clear and loud message, Americans are tired of professional politicians who make policies which leave ordinary people behind.
The Donald Trump fought on a populist agenda, and despite his offensive and heated electoral campaign, it embodied this wave of change and on the night, his victory revealed deep anti-establishment anger among American voters.
These elections have once again emphasised the deep fractures of the American society.
Low income people, high income college graduates and white working class people voted for Trump, despite the revelations that were made about him.
Two issues had the biggest impacts on the elections; the language used by Trump to women, with 71% people feeling bothered by his behavior and on the other side the Clinton mail scandal which made 68% of people feeling unhappy about her as a candidate
In the end the e-mail scandal outweighed the bad treatment of women and minorities by Trump.
Clinton proved to be very popular in New York, California and Washington and major cities but her message clearly did not reach out working class people in the mid-West and it seemed that Democrats were simply out of touch with ordinary Americans.
The swing states, a state where no party has overwhelmingly support, were: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Florida.
In 2012, Barack Obama clinched Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida; Hillary Clinton’s losses in these three swing states turned out to be the deciding factor in the defeat of the Democrats.
The closeness of the races in Florida and Ohio throughout the whole night emphasised the importance of winning these two states for the White House but both of them were then won by Donald Trump.
Trump won with a 49% share in the state of Florida despite the upsurge of Latino voters, up by more than 100% compared to the 2012 Elections, which should have boosted Clinton.
In counties across Florida that are at least three-quarters white, Clinton underperformed Obama by an average of nearly five percentage points. Meanwhile, in counties that were less than 60 per cent white, she underperformed him by 2.5 percentage points.
Besides that, Clinton did not manage to get the same ethnic minorities vote as Barack Obama did in the last election and this was another losing factor for the Democrats.
Ohio was won by Trump with a 52% lead, has been the decisive state for choosing the president for the last 13 elections.
Mrs Clinton performed well on both the East and West coast, winning California, Washington New Jersey, District of Columbia and Delaware.
Hillary Clinton easily won also Illinois, District of Columbia, Oregon and Nevada and managed to hold on in Minnesota.
Donald Trump performed better than Mitt Romney in areas with large numbers of white voters, leading to a far closer election than many had expected.
Trump easily won in the republican states of US; Alabama, Indiana, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Kentucky, Missisipi, Tennensee, Indiana, West Virginia and the conservative Texas.
While Clinton did less well among non-white voters than fellow Democrat President Obama did four years ago.
Trump was also ahead in states with large white populations, such as New Hampshire and Wisconsin and Michigan.
The tension was palpable around US, culminating in a shooting near to polling station in California, which left two people dead .
In his victory speech, the President-elect pledged that he will not let down American people, he kept on thanking Hillary Clinton:
“Hillary has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.”
He finally added: “To all Republicans and Democrats and independents across this nation, I say it is time for us to come together as one united people.”
Featured image by Gage Skidmore via Flickr CC